You can turn your Apple Extended Keyboard into a full computer. Photo: University of Chicago

We never cease to be amazed at all the amazing DIY projects that Mac fans do with old Apple hardware. Case in point: see this vintage Apple Extended Keyboard? It’s not hooked to a computer. It is a computer, thanks to the embedded Rapsberry Pi inside.

In Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, there is a scene in which a tribe of early hominids, having encountered an extraterrestrial Monolith for the first time, are suddenly evolved to the next stage of human consciousness, and are capable of using tools for the first time.

This video of children from the ages of 6 to 13 trying to figure out how to work a vintage Apple II is like the opposite of that. And it shows just how inexplicable computing was to pretty much everyone before Steve Jobs released the original Mac in 1984.

Samsung has today unveiled Shape M7, a $400 wireless speaker that hopes to compete with the Sonos. It connects to your smartphone, tablet, or computer via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or NFC, and there’s a handy companion app that makes setup easy on Android and iOS devices.

Apple and HP have been rated best for customer experience in a study of 10,000 consumers in the United States carried out by Temkin Group. Apple took the top spot in the computer sector with a rating of 64%, while HP took second place with a rating of 62%.

At the other end of the spectrum sat Sony and Lenovo, which were the lowest-rated computer makers.

Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed that “smart connected device” shipments — which includes computers, smartphones, and tablets — reached a record high during the third quarter of 2012, largely thanks to Apple and Samsung. The pair’s hugely popular devices helped the market grow 27.1% year-on-year as it reached a record 303.6 million shipments valued at over $140 billion.